Pinned to a seat in Taliesin Arts Centre, the single frustration of this altogether feel-good performance by the Fitkin Band – led by composer-pianist Graham Fitkin – was not being able to get up and dance. Anyone knowing Fitkin’s music from the numerous scores he’s written for dance companies will recognise that wholly infectious impulse, though watching the moves on stage at least means dancing by proxy.
This evening, part of the Swansea festival, kicked off with Totti, Fitkin’s tribute to the Italian footballer Francesco Totti, himself something of a mover. The rhythms immediately pulsed away, driving everything forward, and the whole of the first half, even the slower Lost and Danse Real, had this underlying thrusting energy. But part of Fitkin’s cleverness is to disallow anything predictable, and sudden changes of metre or direction are accomplished with the slickest legerdemain. It is at once stimulating and disarming. Crucial to this fundamental rhythmic bias are the percussionists: the nine-piece band boasts two of Britain’s finest, Joby Burgess and Adrian Spillett and their excursions into marimba and vibraphone offered further lyrical finesse along with the wind section.
Fitkin’s new piece, Disco, premiered in July at Cheltenham’s festival, but commissioned jointly with Swansea and Minimal Glasgow, has a 70s vibe. More formally, it could be described as a song cycle, the five numbers stylishly delivered by Melanie Pappenheim, backed Bee Gee-style by countertenors Tom Scott-Cowell and Feargal Mostyn-Williams. By no means as flip as the title – Firkin’s trademark is unpretentious one-word labelling – its underlying serious moments suggested a composer now in his 50s reflecting on life, balancing things out. The encore Vamp abandoned that notion, taking up where the gypsy bawdiness of Swell had earlier left off. With its brilliant metallic percussive edge, it put a spring in our steps home.
